evening. and "the rachel maddow show" starts right now. you. >> just lived my nightmare. >> i know. >> this was going to come out while i was live on the air. >> your staff had a betting pool on it. >> we did. whoever won the betting pool was supposed to get tacos. >> you got tacos anyway. >> we got tacos for everybody at 8:00 anyway. i couldn't wait any more. >> it worked, because i got it. >> we brought the tacos, we did not bring your staff any tacos, we'll make that up to you tomorrow. usually when i start this show at 9:00 p.m. eastern, i have a script that i have written because there are things in the news that i would like to tell you about. tonight there is no script because i'm going to go through what we just learned from the special council's office, i'm going to go through it with you,
basically as i am learning this. this just came out within the last 30 minutes, god bless chris hayes who was able to very ably digest this, handle, go to the -- i think the key elements of it right away, bring in lots of expert guests in order to explain what this meant. we have had this for less than a half hour, and i feel like this is the kind of document, the sentencing document which has been filed by the special council's office tonight in the case of michael flynn, who was trump's national security adviser. this is the type of document that is available and sort of readily accessible to all of us who do not have law degrees. i want to go through what we've just learned, what we've just received from mueller's office. i'll tell you how i understand it, and what i think that mueller's office is telling us, with this document. as we go through it. but then only after we have gone through this material are we going to bring in some experts
who are taking their own look at it, people who do have law degrees, people who have worked in the justice department, who have worked on criminal cases like this, and some senior security reporters who have been following the case of mike flynn since it broke. let me show you what we just got, it really is just in. it's dated today, the united states of america versus michael t. flynn, he's the defendant. it's the government's memorandum in aide of sentencing. on december 1st, 2017, the defendant pled guilty to one count of making materially false statements to the fbi. as calculated by the u.s. probation office, the applicable total defense level is 4. resulting in an advisory guideline range, meaning sentencing range of 0 to 6 months.
that does not account for a downward departure pursuant to united states sentencing guidelines, reflecting the defendant's substantial assi assistance to the government. this is our first indication right at the top of the sentencing memorandum, that mueller is pleased with what has gone on between his office and mike flynn in the past year and a couple days since flynn pled guilty and agreed to cooperate. they're saying a downward departure from the sentencing guidelines is warranted in this case, because of the substantial assistance that flynn has provided to the government. and it continues in that vein, given the defendant's substantial assistance, a sentence at the low end of the guideline range is appropriate and warranted. a sentence at the low end of the guideline range, including a sentence that does not impose a term of incarceration. mike flynn, former heads of the defense intelligence agency, the subject of a lot of intrigue and
a lot of unanswered questions in terms of reporting about the russia scandal, the first major figure from the trump administration to fall in conjunction with this scandal, off the bat, out of one year of cooperation with the special council's office. they are recommending no prison time for mike flynn. now, that's, of course, not binding. the judge can depart from that, that is what the special council is recommending, we get a lot more detail in this document of why. >> the nature of the offense and the defendant's history are set forth below. in addition, the addendum to this memo describes the defendant's assistance to the government. meaning what mike flynn told us. because the addendum includes sensitive information about ongoing investigations. the government has filed publicly a redacted version of the document that excludes the sensitive information. that's coming up in a few pages. the addendum is where the special council's office explains how flynn has been
helpful, what exactly he has given them information about. and i'll show you big pieces of it that are redacted, we get a substantial amount of information. all right, sao this -- at the sentencing memorandum, before we get to what he told the government, we get a rundown of how the government got to flynn in the first place, and why he ended up lying to them. as described in the statement of offense, the defendant made multiple false statements to multiple department of justice entities on multiple occasions. the first series occurred during an interview with the fbi on january 24th, 2017. january 24th, 2017 is not yet one week into the brand new trump administration. trump was sworn in january 20th. it's the first tuesday that trump was president. mike flynn was already lying to
the fbi the first tuesday that trump was president. quote, at the time of the interview, the fbi had an open investigation into the russian government's efforts to interfere into the 2016 presidential election. days prior to the fbi's interview of the defendant, the washington post had published a story alleging that flynn had spoken with russia's ambassador to the u.s. on december 29th, 2016. the day the u.s. announced sanctions and other measures against russia in response to that government's actions intended to interfere with the 2016 election. again, this is right after christmas 2016, so this is after the election, we know that donald trump is the incoming president, but obama is still president. obama after christmas, during the transition, orders new sanctions against russia to punish russia for what they did to mess with our election. between christmas and new years,
mike flynn calls the russian ambassador, according to the washington post and says, hey, hey, hey, don't worry about those sanctions. we're going to have a different attitude toward those sanctions, don't retaliate, et cetera. the washington post reports that, that ends up being relevant to the subsequent interview of flynn on that subject. the post's story queried whether the defendant's actions violated the logan act which prohibits u.s. citizens from core responding with a foreign government with the intent to influence the foreign government. subsequent to the publication of the post article, members of president-elect trump's transition team publicly stated they had spoken to the defendant and he denied speaking to the russian ambassador about the sanctions. all right, so that's what the fbi is facing, in the first week of the trump administration,
it's reported in the washington post, during the transition, when the u.s. government was sanctioning russia, mike flynn called them and was like, don't worry about those sanctions. david questions whether 245ez kind of illegal or at least improper. mike flynn then a private citizen, shouldn't be messing with this dispute that the u.s. and russia have over russia interfering with our election. thereafter, flynn and other people within trump's transition team say that flynn told them that flynn didn't actually have those conversations. that creates a counter intelligence worry for the fbi, right? if the ignacious column is correct and those conversations happened between flynn and russia, russia knows they happened, they were in on the calls. and if those conversations did happen, and russia knows they happen, flynn's lying about them. that's a counter intelligence problem. the fbi handles counter
intelligence issues in the united states. if the national security adviser of the united states is telling lies about something, trying to cover something up, and russia knows the truth about it, and russia knows he's lying about it, they can lord that over him, right? they can potentially blackmail him with that, they can threaten him to expose that thing, since they know he wants to cover it up. the fbi handles counter intelligence measures. they want to find out if what flynn reported is true, given his public statements and his statements to other government officials that he didn't do it. that's why the fbi is interested. okay. when the fbi interviewed the defendant on january 24th about his interactions with the russian ambassador. he falsely stated he did not ask the russian ambassador to refrain from escalating the situation in response to the sanctions many and he claimed no
memory of a conversation in which russia had aseeded due to flynn's request. in other words, flynn said don't respond to these obama sanctions, don't worry, we're going to be different. he has a subsequent conversation with the russian ambassador, we didn't respond to those sanctions booze you told us not to. flynn lies about both of those conversations to the fbi. if the fbi is worried about russia having compromised flynn, once they get these false statements from him, not only is he committing another crime by lying to them about it, this is a counter intelligence emergency. he has been lying and russia knows it. having leverage like that over a national security adviser, that's a catastrophe. in addition the defendant made false statements to the fbi about his prior interactions with the russian government, in december 2016, concerning a
pending u.n. security council resolution. the false statements to the fbi about his contacts with the russian government emer sayrery. two, the requests to the emmissary. those were all material to the fbi's investigation into the nature of any links or coordination of the russian government and individuals associated with the trump campaign. at this point on january 24th, 2017, mike flynn is three big problems. he's a felon, because he just lied to them, number two, he has given false statements that are material to a serious ongoing counter intelligence investigation. into how russia interfered in our election. he's given false statements in conjunction with an on going investigation, he's lied to investigators and he himself is a huge counter intelligence and national security risk because he's compromised. that's already in place while mike flynn is getting his drapes
measured for his new desk. this is the first tuesday that trump's in office. that's the first set of lies. the defendant made a second series of false statements to the doj concerning his contacts with the republic of turkey. specifically on march 7th, 2017, so this is after he's out of the trump administration, but he's -- so he's been fired or resigned at this point in mid february, he's out and now talking to investigators. on march 7th, flynn made materially false statements in multiple documents that he filed pursuant to the foreign agent's registration act pertaining to a project he and his company had performed for the principle benefit of the government of turkey. they began work on the project in august 2016, soon after a coupe was attempted in turkey. the project lasted three months. august, september, october, maybe november. and the defendant and his company were paid just over half a million dollars for their
work. the filings omitted the fact that officials from the republic of turkey, provided supervision over the project. flynn was a national security adviser and surrogate for the trump campaign. the defendant's business relationship with the republic of turkey is the type of information fara was designed to ensure was within the public sfooer. the purpose of fara is to make sure the united states people are informed of people used to influence public policy and what yous. when flynn retroactively filed as a foreign agent he omitted material facts from that filing. and the government has become
aggressive on this. this is them sort of pounding their chest a little bit, saying this is what fara is for, so we don't have people in the political sphere who are acting with a foreign entity, without the public knowing the foreign entity is at work here. the president of turkey blamed for the failed coupe in the country. it was a subject of great debate, and flynn's op ed about the cleric's role was valuable to turkey's efforts to shape opinion. he falsely represented that the op ed was written at his own initiative as opposed to the republic of turkey. flynn's false statements impeded the ability of the public to learn about turkey's efforts to influence public opinion about the failed coupe, including its efforts to effectuate the
removal of a person legally residing in the united states. this is materially relevant to what flynn did. this explains one of those oddball stories about flynn, which have been hanging out there ever since he left the trump administration, why did he write that bananas op ed in the hill on election day that called for this turkish cleric to be sent back to turkey. it also relates to current news, because of recent reports that the trump administration is once again negotiating to try to send that cleric back to turkey. that is something that mike flynn was being secretly paid to advocate. the trump administration has since pursued that same super dodgy aim of its own accord. history and characteristics of the defendant. the defendant's history and characteristics present
mitigating and aggravating circumstances. as detailed in the presentence investigation report, the defendant's military and public service are exemplary, flynn serve in the military for over 33 years, including five years of combat duty. he retired as a three-star lieutenant general. the defendant's record of military and public service distinguish him from every other person who has been charged as part of the special council's office investigation. however, senior government leaders should be held to the highest standards. the defendant's extensive government service should have made him particularly aware of the harm caused by providing false information to the government. as well as the rules governing work performed on behalf of a foreign government. the defendant deserves credit for accepting responsibility in a timely fashion and substantially assisting the government, shortly after the special council's office reached out to flynn, he accepted responsibility for his unlawful conduct and began cooperating with the government.
for the foregoing reasons as well as those obtained in the addendum. a sentence at the low end of the advisory guideline range is appropriate and warranted. given the guideline range here, what the special council's office is asking for is no jail time for mike flynn. it's signed on behalf of the special council's office -- well, it's signed. mueller's name is first, brandon and zena. those are -- they're signed on as senior assistant special councils under mueller's name. now we get to second document that was just filed. this is the addendum to that. which spells out how exactly flynn helped. and i'm just going to give you a little spoiler alert here. by the time we're on page two, it already looks like this. so nbc news had reported last
night before we got any of this stuff, that while we were expecting this flynn memo today, because the deadline was midnight tonight. nbc reported that at least some of this document about flynn, about his crimes, about how helpful he's been, about his cooperation, about what the special council's office thinks he should get in terms of punishment, at least some of it would be public facing, it wouldn't all be filed under seal. i think the best parts of it are filed under seal. even the parts that aren't blacked out are really interesting. united states district court for the district of columbia. this is the addendum to the government's memorandum in aide of sentencing. this addendum describes the significance and usefulness of defendant michael t. flynn's assistance to the government and the timeliness of that assistance. the assistance was substantial and merits consideration at
sentencing. i will say one of the things that i'm going to want to check with our expert guests as we go on over the course of this hour, is this consistent emphasis by the special council's office on timeliness. both in the sentencing memorandum and what you'll see here in this detailed exposition of how exactly michael flynn helped. the special council's office goes out of its way to say flynn didn't delay. he helped right away. so big picture here, we're getting flynn with no recommendation of jail time, in terms of how that relates to other witnesses and other people who are considering whether or not they're going to cooperate. this is a message that if you do cooperate well and fully, and expansively with the special council, and you don't hold things back, and they think you're telling the truth, can you get zero jail time. doesn't that sound good. they're also going out of there way to emphasize one of the things they like so much about flynn, is that he told the truth right away. he accepted responsibility, and
told them -- despite his crimes, which they say were serious -- right away what they needed to know. maybe that's boilerplate, but it seems like it sticks out to me in terms of how they're talking about what they like about flynn here. point one, significance and usefulness of the defendant's assistance, the defendant has assisted with several ongoing investigations, a criminal investigation -- redacted. then secondly, the special council's office investigation concerning any links or coordination between the russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of president donald j. trump -- we redacted. that makes it look like mike flynn has helped with three different on going investigations. one of them is a criminal investigation that gets listed before robert mueller ever gets mentioned. before the special council's office investigation even gets
mentioned here, there's some other criminal investigation that flynn helped with too. that we don't know anything about, other than the fact that it's a criminal investigation. and after we get the special couns counsel's office investigation into links between the russian government and trump, there's some other investigation too, that we get no information about. it could be some subsidiary or related investigation from the special council's office, or it could be something totally separate. it looks like flynn is helping with three things. as part of his assistance with these investigations. the defendant participated in 19 interviews with the special counsel's office or attorneys from other defendant of justice offices. he provided documents and communications -- redacted. while this addendum seeks to provide a comprehensive description of the benefit the government has thus far obtained from flynn's substantial assistance, some of that benefit may not be fully realized at this time, because the
investigations in which he has provided assistance are on going. the defendant and the government agree that sentencing at there time is nonetheless appropriate because significant decision is necessary. what that's about is that in general -- and again, not a lawyer, but i talk to lawyers on tv, who fact check me. in general, when you've got a cooperating witness. the -- and again, we've seen slightly different variations on this with different witnesses. in general, the way we've seen this happen is that the witness pleads guilty, the witness is advised at that point of what he or she could potentially face in terms of punishment, but then the witness, if the witness is agreeing to cooperate with prosecutors, prosecutors then basically promise to tell the court how well that witness does as a cooperator. how completely they cooperate. whether they tell the truth, apparently how timely they are
in their cooperation with prosecutors. and then the judge in the case of this person who has pled guilty factors in that cooperation when they decide whether or not the person is going to be sentenced to jail or how much time they're going to get if at all. in this case they're saying, the cooperation has here has been substantial. we like the way that flynn has dealt with us. this is not over, though. they've delayed his sentencing like four or five times at this point. they're finally ready to go ahead with the sentencing, saying that the things that he helps them with are on going investigations. that itself is interesting, the decision to not make flynn wait for his sentencing. wait for the end of his involvement here, until the end of these investigations, to let him go through while they're still on going, that itself seems like a mercy, an act of mercy from the special council's office, we'll get expert advice on that as we go forward.
so then we get point by point a list from the special counsel's office of how exactly flynn has helped these three different investigations that appear to be laid out in the first part of this memo. the first one is the criminal investigation that we know nothing about, and we get nothing on that. it's point a, comes even before the prosecutors talk about how he helped the special council's office. but in redacted criminal investigation, the defendant has provided substantial assistance in a criminal investigation. and then it's basically a full page of redacted lines and we get no other information about how flynn has helped in that investigation or what exactly it is. so we can skip ahead to b, the special council's office investigation. the defendant has also assisted with the special counsel's office investigation, between the russian government and individuals associated with the trump campaign. the defendant assisted the special counsel's investigation on a range of issues including
interactions between individuals in the presidential transition team and russia -- redacts. a nonexhaustive summary of the relevant information is described below to aide the court's assessment of the assistance. into the contacts between the russian government and the trump campaign, some of that we get described here, at least in general terms, but some of that is part of an ongoing investigation that is still blacked out. but here's the detail they give, number one, interactions between the trump transition team and russia. flynn provided firsthand information about the contents and context of interaction between the transition team and russian government officials. flynn communicated with the russian ambassador to the u.s. as a representative of the transition team on two sensitive matters, a vote on a resolution
calling for israel to cease settlement in jerusalem. several senior members of the transition team publicly repeated false information conveyed to them by the defendant michael flynn about communications between him and the russian ambassador regarding the sanctions. redacted redacted redacted. the defendant also provided useful information concerning -- redacted. more than a full page of redactions at this point. so flynn helped with three different things. one of them is the special council's office investigation into contactses between trump and russia. some of that is redacted. one of them is a criminal investigation, all of which is redacted. the other one, we don't know if it's a criminal investigation, that whole thing is redacted. nevertheless, special counsel's
office thinks the amount of cooperation they are able to describe to the court and again none of these things that are redacted are redacted to the judge, the judge knows what's behind all these black bars. the special council's office believes it can convey enough information to the judge about what flynn has done with them, that flynn should be allowed to go forth and be sentenced and the recommendation is zero prison time. or as little as zero prison time. there's still a lot of us being in the dark here. but in general, it's positive. and before they wrap up here, the last thing they say is, once again, going back to the timeliness of the defendant's assistance, it's the last point, the usefulness of the defendant's assistance is connected to its timeliness, flynn began providing information to the government not long after the government first sought his cooperation. his early cooperation was particularly valuable, because he was one of the few people with long term and firsthand insight regarding events and
issues under investigation by the special counsel. additionally, flynn's decision to plead guilty and cooperate likely affected the decisions of related firsthand witnesses to be forthcoming with the special council and cooperate. meaning, when flynn flipped, that made other people flip too. but then after that, it's one big long redacted line. and then respectfully submitted, robert mueller. that's what we've been waiting for in terms of the government's public facing sentencing documents. sentencing recommendations when it comes to flynn. the amount of information here that is redacted, the way that it is redacted. indicating he's cooperating in three different investigations, but we're only allowed to know part of one of them is fascinating, but some of the legal points here are things for which i need some expert advice. boy do i have a good expert, chuck rosenberg, former u.s.
attorney, chuck, it's great to have you with us tonight. thank you so much for looking at these documents as soon as they've come out, and for helping us understand what's here. >> my pleasure, rachel. thank you for having me. >> i am told that in the addendum in particular you think that there is -- there's something that jumps out for you, sort of late in the addendum in that piece that i just read. can you talk to us about that? >> sure can. it's that last paragraph you cited on page five of the addendum. it talks about a couple things that are really critical, mr. flynn's cooperation was early, timely. that it was firsthand, that it was long term, and that, in fact, as you noted. it caused other people also to cooperate. so you asked earlier and it's a great question, why does timely matter so much? you see it here, and the government tells you precisely why it matters, because other
people followed his lead. other people came forth. by the way, rachel, in that same addendum, where it notes that he was interviewed 19 times. it also says that he provided documents and communications. that's also critical. so it's not just the word of michael flynn upon which they are relying. he has stuff to corroborate what he said. documents and communications. and that's also critical to prosecutors, the sooner they get that, the quicker they can build a case and rope in other people. >> you mentioned when you're describing what's interesting to you about that part of the addendum, that them describing his cooperation as firsthand. his early cooperation was particularly vulnerable -- valuable because he was one of the few people with long term and firsthand insight regarding events and issues under investigation by the special counsel. what does that mean in this
context? >> to quote from hamilton, he was in the room where it happened. he heard it, he saw it, he remembered it and he told it. and apparently he told it truthfully. this is an ordinary sentencing memorandum in an extraordinary investigation. ordinary in the sense that every time somebody is sentenced in federal district court, the government files a sentencing memorandum laying out what he or she did, and what consideration they ought to get from the court at sentencing. what makes this unusual is that the government goes out of its way to say that even though this investigation is not complete, look at all those redactions, we trust this guy. he was early, he was firsthand, he was honest, he was forthright. he met with us 19 times. and we're comfortable with this guy not going to jail. that timeliness, that firsthand information, that firsthand information that puts the government in the room where it happened is what's so crucial
here. >> and when they use the term insight. i think of insight as sort of a nonlegal term, i think of it as a wooly term, meaning he's essentially helping them form con te contextual appraisals of the information. he maybe consulted with them in the evidence they should collect. is that a sort of thing providing insight, giving us understanding of the information that we were going to accumulate here? is that typical of sentencing memorandum as well? >> it's a very savvy point. you don't often see that word per se in a sentencing memorandum. what does happen during all those debriefs, is that people will ask -- agents and prosecutors will ask flynn for context. who was there? what did it mean? sometimes you'll see this in mob cases or drug cases, where the
language used isn't automatically aparent to other people. sometimes people talk in code or sometimes they have acronyms, sometimes the fact that someone is in the room or not in the room, has some importance to the participant that is it would not to you and me. he's giving them insight, he's giving them context, he's giving them fiber if you will. and that makes him also particularly valuable. considering it was early, firsthand, long term and forthright. >> the phrase that they use right up at the top in the sentencing memorandum, not in the addendum where they spell out how he helped them, the defendant's substantial assistance to the government. >> yeah. >> is that a trigger word? >> yeah. >> is that a specific term that the judge is looking for in terms of what sort of impact this should have on flynn's sentence? substantial assistance? >> yes. in fact, unlike insight, substantial assistance is a term of art.
under the united states federal sentencing guidelines, the government can move for a downward departure, below the recommended guideline range if the defendant provides substantial assistance. now, here, of course, the guideline range is 0 to 6 months. you can't really go much lower than that. but they nevertheless want to flag for the sentencing judge that his cooperation rises to that level. and federal judges recognize that term, substantial assistance and they know that the government only gives it to those who provide extraordinary assistance. >> i have one last question for you, chuck, and again, i really appreciate. i know how careful you are in all of your work, and in everything you say, so reviewing this quickly, and giving us your top line -- your top line take on it, and in order to help us through it, i realize it's a lot to ask of you tonight. i am thankful for you. >> my pleasure. >> i raise the question while i
was going through the document as to whether or not this might indicate a sort of merciful attitude toward flynn on the part of the special council's office. >> yeah. >> i raise that specifically because of the redactions. the special counsel's office explains in writing, in plain language that the reason all this stuff is blanged out and redacted in this filing is because a lot of the stuff that he helped them with turned into ongoing investigations. stuff that isn't wrapped up yet. and it's my impression, just as a lay observer of these things, that cooperators usually expect to have to wait until the case is over before they find out how valuable their cooperation was. whether it resulted in prosecutions and convictions of others. and how the judge should weigh it against the gravity of their crimes. by allowing the sentencing to go forward, while so many flynns that flynn helped them with are still on going and not unsettled
matters and not being disclosed to the public even a little. shouldn't we essentially see that as generosity toward flynn? >> yeah, i think that's a fair read, rachel. here's why. the government could have asked the judge to keep postponing sentencing. the judge i assume would have done so. and most defendants have to wait until their cooperation is complete in order to get this consideration. a couple things might be going on here, though. number one, remember his guidelines -- the guideline recommendations was still 0 to 6 months, he was perhaps not likely to go to jail no matter what, even though the judge could sentence him to a period of incarceration, second, i presume that they have had him testify in the grand jury, meaning, and we've discussed this before, they've locked in his testimony under oath. so if they need him at a trial down the road, they still have some leverage over him. they have that locked down sworn grand jury testimony to make
sure he doesn't sort of stray from the script that he has already provided to them. so is it an act of mercy? i think that's a fair read. but does the government have what it needs? absolutely, they seem quite satisfied here. >> chuck rosenberg, former u.s. attorney. thank you, chuck. really appreciate you being here. >> my pleasure. next i want to bring into the conversation, carol linnick. she's been a top byline on a lot of the scoops thus far. carol, thank you so much for being here. >> glad to be here, sorry it's a little bit scattered here. >> well, you know, it is here too. usually i write things i say on tv. not tonight. >> i understand. >> let me ask you, first of all, just for your top line impression of how flynn seems to
be fitting in to the overall russia scandal, to the overall investigation, and how this document has advanced our understanding of that tonight? >> well, i think there were three big, striking moments in this filing, for me. one it didn't advance our knowledge a heck of a lot. i don't mean to downplay the news value of this. there is news value. one of the most striking things is how many things mueller kept shrouded in secrecy. how many places you're reading that flynn provided help in a criminal investigation we're not really sure about, and it's entirely redacted. how many ways in which he helped the special counsel investigation on matter that are also redacted. how much of the detail of what flynn told mueller about trump transition officials, senior officials and contacts with russia that are also redacted. that's the first biggie, is a
lot of this stuff is still under wraps. you have to wonder, why is it that bob mueller wants to keep it under wraps right now, and only share it with the sentencing judge, what is the issue there. >> another striking thing i saw in this item was how much mueller values the firsthand. first person knowledge of michael flynn. a person who shocked justice department officials in early january by lying to fbi agents about something he had to know was recorded. a conversation with the russian ambassador. during the transition period. but in this filing, mueller says, look, he's been critical and important early witness who probably, according to mueller's filing, probably persuaded other transition officials and trump campaign officials to be more forthcoming and cooperative with the probe. in other words, more honest.
>> carol, when i read the special counsel's recitation of the seriousness of flynn's crime, and the -- even as they're saying, we basically think he shouldn't get prison time, and he's been super helpful to us. when they're laying out what he did wrong. they talk about that first time in january 2017, when he lied to them, it seems to me that the fbi, with its counter intelligence mission at that point, had a few different problems with mike flynn right off the bat, in the first week that trump was in office. number one, he was lying to them about something they definitely know. because as you say, that conversation with the russian government, he had to have known, would have been recorded, we have since learned through open source reporting, that it likely -- there were intercepts if not recordings, and transcripts of that conversation. the government knew what happened there, so they knew he was lying, lying to the fbi is a crime, they have a criminal working as a national security
adviser. it's also possible that the lies he told there, were material to what was then the open fbi investigation into russia's interference in the election, and their contacts with the trump campaign. he was lying to them in conjunction with a case in a way that was material to what was being investigated. the third problem had to be a counter intelligence problem itself. he was telling lies publicly about something russia knew the truth of. he had been in contact with the russian government, the russian government knew that, when he started covering that up, and telling lies about that, publicly to other administration officials, and also to the nfbi russia had something on him. threaten to out him, blackmail him. as national security adviser which is very dangerous. i wonder from your reporting, your understanding of how this all unfolded with flynn. what sort of alarms that would set off within the fbi. what else that would activate in
terms of the u.s. government to try to neutralize or mitigate the harm caused by someone who was that many urgent problems all at once, the first week of a presidency. >> you summarized that so well, and what's -- i've interviewed several of the people who are on both sides of this exchange, and several of them have testified publicly, so there's lots out there that you can understand about both sides of this experience. flynn was lying about something to fbi agents that he had to have known they would discover was a lie. why in the world justice department officials ask themselves back at headquarters, why in the world had he not been truthful. what was so important that he couldn't share this piece of information? and that's still today a really important mystery that's not been entirely unlocked. as well, you had the president getting alerted by his white house council, don mcgahn.
remember, sally yates, after the fbi interview that doesn't go very well for flynn. sally yates decides it's so important, she has to come over to the white house, basically two days later, she tells don mcgahn, look, there's a problem. your guy is compromised, i'm not the person to decide for you what to do, but this is an issue. he's vulnerable. the russians know this, and by the way, he's lying. mcgahn takes this immediately to donald trump, donald trump is four days into being president, and his instant reaction is, i don't see what the big problem is, and what in the world are these people doing from the obama justice department coming over questioning my -- you know, my heads, my choices of senior advisers? so on both sides there's huge disrupt and at least on the justice side alarm. on the president's side annoyance. >> yeah. >> but they're very worried
about this, and now mueller has a lot of cooperation from flynn and he now has no doubt explained to him why it was so important to lie on january 24th and eventually become the shortest serving national security adviser in history. >> carol leonnig, thank you for joining us tonight. it's putting pressure on you. i'm all the more thankful you were able to join us on such short notice. thank you, carol. >> thank you. i want to bring into the conversation, barb mcquaid. thank you so much for staying in the studio and for helping us through this. >> my pleasure, rachel. >> let me ask, your top line view of this, you've seen a lot of sentencing documents, a lot of sentencing documents pursuant to cooperation agreements. does this strike you as unusual in anyway, is it a typical sort of sentencing document? what seems important about the overall russia investigation
here now that we've got this new information about flynn? >> well, it is typical. other than the redactions, waiting all day, eating our popcorn, waiting to see the big reveal to get all of those redactions is somewhat unsatisfying. there are a coupling things disclosed in the heavily redacted form that we see. they met 19 times that is a huge number of meetings, and suggest that michael flynn has shared an awful lot of information with the special counsel. the other thing you pointed out, by going through the redactions in the addendum, it looks like there's not just one, but three separate investigations that michael flynn has cooperated about. the special counsel investigation, and then one that's partly redacted but says criminal investigation. and a third that's completely redacted. if you say criminal investigation, is that in contrast with something else that's in that third investigation? is it not criminal? is it something else? is it a civil investigation? or is it a counter intelligence investigation? so that raises some additional questions about, are there other
matters that robert mueller's looking at. his mandate was to investigate links between russia and the trump campaign and the second part of that was, and other matters that might arise in the course of the investigation. have they found other things, does this involve things happening in the seychelle islands? it makes me wonder what other things mike flynn might be talking with them about. >> i'm reading that exactly the same way you are, you try to put these things in context, and you think, well, given how long flynn lasted in the trump administration, as carol was saying, the shortest lived ever national security adviser, didn't even make it a month. it can't be that he's a great source of information for things that happened during the administration, he can really only be contributing materially substantial information for the most part, about the campaign. what may have happened before the campaign conceively and
during the transition. what would the special counsel's office list before their own investigation? if they're making a list of three things of which he's helping. the first thing they list is a criminal investigation -- redacted. >> right. >> the second thing they list is their own investigation. the special counsel's office investigation. and the third thing, it comes after an oxford comma. i don't know how much to read into -- how much to finally parse these things. i guess we'll only find out if these redactions are ever made public. do you think these redactions will ever be undone? will ever be allowed to see this full document? >> i do. i think a day will come that they will be unsealed. at some point these investigations will be over, either because charges will be filed or because they decide to
decline to bring them. i think the day will come some day. i don't know when, when we'll see what is behind these black bars. >> on that point, barb, there's the issue of right now how the special counsel's office fits into the justice department, and what's going on with the acting attorney general, matt whitaker who president trump has installed after firing jeff sessions. we have presumed that the acting attorney general has been back channeling information to the white house in terms of his access to information about the mueller investigation. that is a presumption on our part, based on the change in language that the president has used since whitaker has been in there. claiming he now has information about the inner workings of the mueller investigation and other things like that. but aside from those presumptions and suppositions we have been making. would you expect the way the justice department works, the way the special counsel's office works, would you expect that
whitaker would have seen the full unredacted documents here? and if there is, particularly sensitive or damning information there, there's a possibility that whitaker may back channel that to the white house. >> i say yes and yes. he certainly would have had access to seeing the unredacted version of this. we have heard no reporting he's been recused from this case. i imagine he's not. i would imagine that rosenstein is still the one interacting with mueller most frequently. the attorney general is usually the outward facing person. in light of how incredibly important this case is, and the unusual nature of whitaker's appointment leap frogging rosenstein to get this job, i would think he would be immensely curious. he has a right to see it, he even has a right to stop it if
he thinks it's completely inappropriate or contrary to justice department policies. he didn't think it was the case here. if he wanted to, i think he could go tell president trump exactly what's behind those redactions. if he were to do it with some corrupt intent with some effort to impede the investigation or get other people to change their stories to coordinate with what's here. i think he probably could find out what's in here, and share it with the president. >> thank you for being here tonight, barb. >> thank you, rachel. >> much more to get here tonight. the big news is that within the last hour or so, the justice department, the special council's office has released its sentencing memorandum, saying that they want the judge to give mike flynn as little as zero time in prison. and that he has provided substantial assistance to the government in multiple ongoing investigations, if you want to know about that substantial
assistance, you will have to wait until the judge unseals those portions of these filings, because there's page after page after page after page that look like this, spelling out what investigations mike flynn is helping with and how exactly he has helped. stay with us. ♪ (volunteer) hey. (old man) come on in. (volunteer) you taught me the rules. (vo) you do more than feed seniors when you share the love. you feed souls. get a new subaru, like the all new forester, and charities like meals on wheels can receive two hundred and fifty dollars from subaru. (avo) get zero percent during the subaru share the love event. before discovering nexium 24hr to treat her frequent heartburn, claire could only imagine enjoying chocolate cake. now she can have her cake and eat it too. nexium 24hr stops acid before it starts for all-day, all-night protection. can you imagine 24 hours without heartburn? for all-day, all-night protection.
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♪ spread a little love today ♪ spread a little love my-y way ♪ ♪ spread a little something to remember ♪ philadelphia cream cheese. made with fresh milk and real cream makes your recipes their holiday favourites. the holidays are made with philly. before we got the mike flynn sentencing memorandum tonight from robert mueller's office, "the wall street journal" was first to report that bill priestap is leaving the federal bureau of investigations. that is not a household name, but bill is the number two official in the counter intelligence department at fib financial. it is a landmark moment in the russia investigation because he is the last senior fbi official directly involved at a senior level in the russia investigation from the very beginning. he is the last one who was still at the fbi. and now as of this reporting tonight in the "wall street journal," apparently he is now gone, too. or at least he's on his way out. and i know that these guys
sometimes just age out. the "wall street journal" says there is nothing unusual that he hit the 20-year benchmark at the department and decided to leave for that reason and that reason alone, but it is striking that as of tonight, all of the senior fbi officials who were involved in investigating the russia scandal from the beginning, they are now all gone. and the specific official who was actually running the russia investigation inside the bureau on a day to day, hands on basis, before it was handed over to robert mueller, that was bill prestamp, and he is about to leave the bureau himself. maybe this is totally normal. maybe this is coincidental and a typical turnover. it is remarkable it has been 2 # 1/2 years since rachid redouane interfered in our election. that investigation is not
wrapped up given the redactions in the mike flynn sentencing of all the things he's helping with that are not wrapped that are still ongoing. but since the fbi started that investigation in the summer of 2016, the fbi has lost or turfed out its director james comey, its deputy director andrew mccabe, the head of counter espionage, peter strzok, the fbi general counsel james baker, the fbi chief of staff, the head of national security division, chief council to the deputy director lisa page, now the assistant director of the counter intelligence division who was personally running the investigation before mueller. as of tonight, they are, all of them, gone. and that is intriguing tonight in terms of why bill priestap is leaving and why now. it is also a good reminder of the night wee get t get the sen document on michael flynn. there was an op-ed in usa today, just this morning even before we
got the flynn sentencing documents, it's a good reminder the whole russia scandal was being run by the deputy director of counter intelligence at the fbi because it all started as a counter intelligence investigation. and the counter intelligence division at the fbi is charged with stopping other countries from running foreign intelligence operations in our borders to affect this country. in this trump campaign, now trump administration scandal, this counter intelligence investigation has specifically been looking into how russia's intelligence services, their military intelligence wing, how they were trying to mess up our presidential election in 2016. and whether there were americans who were helping them in that effort. and the first dramatic counter intelligence development we the public ever knew about in all this, because we saw it unfold in the newspapers. we saw it unfold with dramatic action in washington, was the case of mike flynn. and tonight, even with these details that we got from his sentencing memo, there remain all these intriguing questions we still don't have answers to
about the mike flynn part of this. when mike flynn went to russia and attended a gala dinner promoting the russian propaganda channel r.t. in december 2015, why did he accept that invitation? as a former senior intelligence official in the u.s. military? and why did he publicly lie about the fact he was actually paid by the russian government to make that trip? it is relatively easy to figure out that the russian government paid for mike flynn to take that trip. why did he publicly lie about it and deny that? he said he wasn't ashamed of it and there was nothing wrong with it. if so, why did he lie? there was also the peter smith story, republican activist now deceased peter smith, exposed in "wall street journal" for having run a sort of private intel operation during the campaign where he contacted hackers offering to pay good money for hacked e-mails stolen from hillary clinton. before he died, peter smith told shane harris at the "wall street journal," he specifically sought out russian hackers for this plot, and he bragged to potential investors and coconspirators that mike flynn and mike flynn's son were both
working with him on that. was peter smith like about or was mike flynn involved in that operation? when "the wall street journal" and washington post each reported successively on details of flynn's secret involvement in a weird plan to build nuclear power plants in the middle east, a plan that would involve russia, that's the plan that reportedly led mike flynn to text one of his business partners in that deal, literally on inauguration day to text him that economic sanctions on russia would be ripped up as one of the trump administration's first acts, which of courses he was excited about because that would have an impact on their nuclear deal. when flynn was having his repeated conversations with the russian government about lifting sanctions, when he was lying publicly to the fbi about those communications with russia, were those discussions knowingly connected to his own business dealings that would have benefitted from russia -- dropping russian sanctions? were those conversations knowingly related to president
trump's secret business dealings with russia, which would have benefited from the dropping of russian sanctions? if so, russia presumably knew about all of that, too. is that why those sanctions discussions were kept secret? i mean, according to open source reporting, flynn is tied up in all these different elements of inchrissy tiegen involving russia and its interference in our election, counter intelligence worries about russia, running operations inside our country to compromise senior members of the u.s. government including the u.s. president and the national security advisor. now we've got news that michael flynn has been cooperating with the special counsel's office offering significant, substantial contribution much to the satisfaction of the special counsel and therefore he should serve no prison time. that said, what he's been cooperating about we're not allowed to know because it is still ongoing investigations. in that context, politico.com was first to report tonight that inside the trump white house, a new white house

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